Ancient Greece, Mycenaean Period, Late Helladic III, ca. 1425 to 1100 BCE. An elegant wheel-thrown pottery askos with a petite circular base, an apple-shaped body, a rounded shoulder with a projecting spout, a squat neck, and a flat rim with a bale handle arching over the top. The cream-slipped body exhibits solid areas of red slip around the foot, spout, rim exterior, and bale handle, as well as a register of wide, spiraling coils tracing around the shoulder. A fine example from an era when Mycenae was at its peak of influence! Size: 5.5" W x 8.25" H (14 cm x 21 cm).

This period is so named for the palace at Mycenae, famed in Homeric legend as the opulent seat of King Agamemnon. Excavations at the palace at Mycenae revealed an elite and long-lasting society with a great deal of wealth. This extended to the workshops of artisans who produced pottery like this vessel both for use in Greece and throughout the Mediterranean world; shiploads of similar jars went out as far as the Levant and Spain, carrying oil, wine, and other commodities.

A stylistically-similar example of a shorter form hammered for GBP 3,000 ($3,952.88) at Christie's, London, South Kensington Antiquities Auction (sale 4925, April 26, 2012, lot 233): https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/ancient-art-antiquities/a-mycenaean-pottery-askos-circa-1400-1200-bc-5546905-details.aspx?from=searchresults&intObjectID=5546905&sid=9b21ea9e-1935-40b9-8ed0-27e9d0620224

Provenance: private East Coast, USA collection; ex-Richard Wagner collection, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA, acquired in the 1970s

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#139393

Handle and neck reattached with minor nicks and some resurfacing along break lines. Surface wear and abrasions commensurate with age, minor nicks to base, body, spout, neck, and handle, with fading and loss to several areas of pigmentation, and some minor pitting holes. Nice earthen deposits and traces of pigmentation throughout. Old inventory label beneath base.